Reflections

Over the past several months, I have heard from people across the United States who have shared how The Invitation to Love has touched their lives. Fall 2015, I will share periodically, a reflection from those who have read and been inspired by the book. Come back often to see what others are saying...

I read Darren’s book at a time I didn’t think I needed it. But perhaps, I really knew I did need it but I didn’t want to admit it. I was uncertain, not sure what to expect, and perhaps maybe even a little guarded. I read through most of it fairly easily until I got to Marianne Williamson’s quote: “Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure.” I didn’t agree with it and really had to sit with it. I doubted that power for myself. It just so happens I was doing a ten day meditation on resistance when I came across this quote. I was also uncertain of the meditation at the time. The meditation was, “What, or who, am I resisting in life right now?” and surprisingly work kept coming up as the answer. I had no clue why, but it kept coming to mind during the meditation. I wondered for days why work was the answer. As I revisited the quote in Darren’s book, it finally occurred to me why work was my resistance. One piece of feedback during my review was that I needed to speak up more. I asked what they meant by that and they couldn’t really explain it, or it didn’t make sense to me. But in this moment, I realized I was afraid to speak up at work. I was afraid I’d ask the wrong question or appear ignorant. I needed to speak my mind and ask questions. Once I understood this, I challenged myself to speak up more. Immediately I saw change happening. I often highlighted things that had gone unnoticed. I started to enjoy work more. And I often was praised for asking or bring up good points. Darren’s book helped me understand how to challenge myself in a deeper way. Through those challenges, growth began to occur.

— Brian, Washington, D.C.

It’s refreshing to read a book that speaks to your life! I thank Darren Pierre for being vulnerable enough to share his experiences with his audience including me. His transparency about his truth, brings to light what others like me have been suffering in silence. I connected so well with his pain, resentment, and self-esteem issues through the various short stories of his experiences. What this book shows is that our past negative experiences can alter our own perspectives most times in negative ways. It also teaches us that we must channel our inner selves to change our perspective and outlook on life for the better. We can reflect on the past and acknowledge the wrong doings, but we do not have to endorse it. Forgiving yourself and others is a freeing experience that everybody should embrace, and I have to thank Darren for helping me see the beauty in it.

— Carmalita, Charlotte, NC

Raw, unabridged, and a deeply intuitive memoir of one man’s growth fashioned of pains, beautiful happenstance, and the eternal pursuit of the thing that binds us all together: love. It’s a read that conforms to all nationalities, sexual identities, ages, races, and genders: and it’s because of the universality of stating his own experience in love that, I, the reader gain a fuller appreciation to the complexity of love due to its unending variations and permutations. Love, its brave pursuit, is not easy nor should or shall it ever be. What I’ve truly taken away from reading Darren’s exploration in his own life of this topic is that we are given the opportunity to love, and love again and again at every turn our lives make. Do we recognize the invitation we are receiving? Can we put our ego and own pain aside long enough to realize, simply, we all are just astronauts, exploring the infinite space of love.

— Mathew, Detroit, Michigan

The Invitation to Love shows us that to love another person is to put time, energy, and patience toward comprehending how the life story of another person intersects with the journey that is our own. Thus to love another, we must first take on the task of learning how to love and understand ourselves. Explained through interpreted examples, Darren Pierre gives us the introduction to this powerful way of seeing the world. His words are only the tip of the iceberg. We must dive into our own lives to learn more.

— Lauren, Atlanta, Georgia

The Invitation to Love is just that, an invitation to go on a journey of self-exploration, and Darren is the perfect companion. The book is at times witty and at times sad, but always poignant in its observations. It reads like the advice of a best friend and reminds us that love is a work in progress and that you have to continuously give of yourself in order to receive.

— Steven, Washington DC

The Invitation to Love delves on so many levels of love. From friendships to family to significant others, and even your relationship with yourself, there is something everyone can relate to. In reading this book not only did I feel like I reconnected with an old friend, but myself as well. I realized a few relationships in my life just needed a little grace; for me to get back up, let go of the hurt, have some faith and try.

— Kelly, North Carolina

The stories in Darren Pierre’s book read like short sermons or homilies from a “church” devoted to the development of human dignity, interpersonal respect and committed emotional and romantic love. These aren’t traditionally “religious” lessons, but they are moral, sensible and uplifting in the way you’d want sermons to be. And they’re about how to create healthy relationships. In most of the stories, the author—an educated gay, Black man who writes with a simple, helpful and easily understandable narrative voice—recounts some personal experience of his own growing up or perhaps of relating now to people in his life. From these personal experiences, he gleans lessons about how people relate. Some of the lessons are about people’s failures; others about their successes and positive traits that follow. Much of the wisdom is familiar, but it needs to be restated over and over for every generation, and Pierre does a good job articulating what every human being needs and ought to know, but apparently many don’t. What you don’t like in others is something you don’t like in yourself; you can only give or receive as much love as you believe possible; your unhappiness with yourself shows up in your relationships with other people; it’s better to speak the whole truth than keep your feelings secret for fear you’ll ruin everything if you acknowledge them; in the school of life people show up when they’re ready to learn the lessons they need; life is full of lessons. Though the stories and essays are laid out as a continuing narrative, the author suggests reading only a couple or three at a time. I agree. This book makes for a very nice series of daily meditations, almost as though you’d had your favorite preacher or wise compassionate teacher stop by each day with some supportive words and a little welcomed good advice.